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Introduction

My original intention with this project was to do a broader survey of the
manifestations of various “high art” aesthetic classifications (Romanticism, Modernism,
and Postmodernism amongst them) throughout the last forty years of rock music history.
One particular part of the plan was to establish a connection between the “psychedelic”
rock music of the late 1960s and the aesthetics of the twentieth-century art movement
known as Surrealism.

This section of the project was the first upon which I worked. After beginning the
study, I soon felt that an amplification of this particular topic was necessary in order to
establish the multiple parameters of this connection solidly. Thus, the topic has become a
self-contained study. It is my hope that it will be perceived as a thorough and rigorous
one.

In doing the research for this project, I listened to hundreds of hours of
psychedelic music that I had collected in one form or another (vinyl records, cassette
tapes, and compact discs) over many years. It is my belief that the listening done for this
study constitutes a representative swath of the thousands of psychedelic records from the
time period (roughly 1966 to 1970). If I ultimately did not get a chance to hear many
obscure records, I have perhaps at least heard a lot of them and believe that my listening
included a majority of the records widely considered to be classics of the genre.
Whether or not every single song discussed in this project qualifies as a truly
“psychedelic” manifestation is, of course, a subject that is open for debate. Naturally, I
could not include defenses for the inclusion of every song within the text of this work. In
the cases of certain artists (the Mothers of Invention, late 1960s songs by the Bee Gees,
1966-era Beach Boys, the Kinks’ “Lazy Old Sun”), I have included discussions of
particular songs felt to be of a psychedelic orientation, though these groups’ entire
repertoires from the period were perhaps not.

Most of the records analyzed in this study came from the United States or Great
Britain. Rather than continually identifying every artist as either American or British, I
have chosen to mention a particular artist or group’s nationality only if it is something
other than these. A song chart organized by artist name and country of origin is included
as an appendix to this volume.

Recordings discussed in this project range from those by hugely popular groups
that sold millions of copies worldwide (as with the Beatles, for example) to small-label
records made by obscure artists that may have only sold very few copies in these artists’
own home towns. Research about obscure psychedelic records has been widespread for
several decades, and the phenomenon of lesser-known records becoming well known
through re-releases or the appearances of particular songs on compilation albums has not
been uncommon.

A thorough discography with information about every record or compact disc on
which each song mentioned in this study has appeared would be an extensive research
project in itself. I would refer anyone interested in discographical information about any
of the songs or albums mentioned herein to the three exhaustive volumes published by
Borderline Books from the United Kingdom: Tapestry of Delights (English psychedelic
music), Fuzz, Acid, and Flowers (U.S. psychedelic music), and Dreams, Fantasies, and
Nightmares (Canadian, Australian, and Latin American psychedelic music).

While this project is not a work of criticism, it is informed somewhat by my own
tastes and, ultimately, by the fact that most of the recordings at my disposal were ones
that I had particularly sought out over the years. Though it is not my belief that all of the
records analyzed in this study are amongst the best examples of the genre, I am pleased
that many of the records that I have personally enjoyed a great deal are well represented.
It is my hope that the musicological analysis that I have undertaken ultimately does the
artistic triumphs of many of these records justice.

Analytical Focus of the Project

Surrealism, the aesthetic basis for this study, is commonly associated with the
particular techniques used by the artists affiliated with the movement. These techniques
valued poetic associations arrived at through means other than a conscious artistic intent.
Music was not a big part of the Surrealist movement, but chap. 1 of this work
nevertheless seeks to establish the aesthetic common ground that existed between
Surrealist art and a variety of avant-garde musics from the same time period. These
parameters set up the discussion of psychedelic music as a “surrealistic” phenomenon
that follows.

Chap. 2 of the study begins with a look at connections between psychedelic music
and the Surrealist movement itself. The chapter, however, is primarily devoted to a study
of Romantic elements in psychedelic music. This discussion of Romanticism is pertinent
to the topic for two reasons. First, the Surrealist movement itself may be seen as a
particular extension of Romantic aesthetics. Second, the presence of these elements in a
musical form (rock and roll) that previously had little to do with old-fashioned Romantic
aesthetics was of a generally bizarre, and thus perhaps “surreal,” nature. Both of these
facets are also true of the study of Gothic-Romantic elements in psychedelic music that
follows in chap. 3.

Chap. 4 and chap. 5 are based upon the premise that the primary unit of
significance in Surrealist aesthetics is the surreal object. Chap. 4 examines the lack of
meaning in psychedelic song lyrics and the context this creates for objects, divorced from
their real world functions, to become some of the primary subject matter of the songs.
The chapter includes discussions of particular objects (toys, food objects, clocks,
animals) commonly found as surreal presences in psychedelic song lyrics. Chap. 5
involves discussions of the treatment of human beings as surrealistic props (or, again,
objects) in song lyrics, the general phenomenon of text materials treated as what I will
refer to as surreal “poetic objects,” and the use of sonic materials in order to denote
particular objects also experienced as surreal presences on recordings.

Chap. 6, the final chapter of this study, presents the argument that the psychedelic
song is itself perceptible as a sort of surreal art “object.” This chapter begins with a
consideration of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, seen as a
particularly significant example of the sequencing of psychedelic albums as programs of
juxtaposed “musical objects.” The remainder of the chapter is devoted to particular
examples of the ways in which songwriters created songs that would stand out as unique
(and often bizarre) musical events on psychedelic records, including examinations of
prominent psychedelic stylistic types and a look at particular structural strategies used in
the compositions.

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All files and text are copyright Tim Ellison and used with the author’s permission.